Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
585 BC — the Moon's shadow crossed France, Italy and modern-day Türkiye, and Herodotus says it landed mid battle between the Lydians and the Medes. Both armies were so shaken they stopped fighting and made peace on the spot. Historians still argue over when it happened, and even where.
1715 — Edmund Halley used Newton's new theory of gravity to predict exactly where the shadow would fall over England, then published a map so the public wouldn't panic.
1851 — a photographer named Johann Julius Friedrich Berkowski pointed a telescope at totality over Königsberg (modern-day Kaliningrad) and took the first ever photo of the Sun's corona.
1999 — the last total eclipse to cross mainland Europe, and one of the most watched in history, with the shadow racing from Cornwall to Romania.
Now it's our turn. On 12 August 2026, the shadow sweeps over Greenland and Iceland, crosses into Spain just before sunset, and most of Europe gets at least a partial eclipse.
We'll be broadcasting live from the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre in Teruel, Spain, on ESA Web TV and YouTube from around 19:30 CEST. Set your reminder now, you won't want to miss this one!
📹 European Space Agency (ESA)
#ESA #Eclipses #Space
585 BC — the Moon's shadow crossed France, Italy and modern-day Türkiye, and Herodotus says it landed mid battle between the Lydians and the Medes. Both armies were so shaken they stopped fighting and made peace on the spot. Historians still argue over when it happened, and even where.
1715 — Edmund Halley used Newton's new theory of gravity to predict exactly where the shadow would fall over England, then published a map so the public wouldn't panic.
1851 — a photographer named Johann Julius Friedrich Berkowski pointed a telescope at totality over Königsberg (modern-day Kaliningrad) and took the first ever photo of the Sun's corona.
1999 — the last total eclipse to cross mainland Europe, and one of the most watched in history, with the shadow racing from Cornwall to Romania.
Now it's our turn. On 12 August 2026, the shadow sweeps over Greenland and Iceland, crosses into Spain just before sunset, and most of Europe gets at least a partial eclipse.
We'll be broadcasting live from the Observatorio Astrofísico de Javalambre in Teruel, Spain, on ESA Web TV and YouTube from around 19:30 CEST. Set your reminder now, you won't want to miss this one!
📹 European Space Agency (ESA)
#ESA #Eclipses #Space
